


Silence

by Rubia_Elliora



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-10
Updated: 2019-06-10
Packaged: 2020-04-24 00:47:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19162399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rubia_Elliora/pseuds/Rubia_Elliora
Summary: The portal is open, and nothing is different—nothing seems different. The leaves are tinged with silver from the full moon that hangs overhead, and everything is as calm and unmoving as the objects in my room. A full moon? But that was yesterday…I take another step over the threshold.





	Silence

**Author's Note:**

> This was just a drabble inspired by Aciman's statement that he could not write silence. 
> 
> Enjoy.
> 
> Love, Becs

Something wakes me. It’s not a sound or a movement, just a tangible but elusive change in the air. It creeps over the ancient floorboards and my fresh cotton sheets before encroaching on my body. The hair on my arm stands on end.

The sensation reminds me of that moment on a hot summer day, lying sprawled on your back, basking in the rays, when, without warning, a dark cloud passes in front of the sun. That invisible change in pressure and the sudden drop in temperature, prickle across your skin. A simple mass of watery vapour blocks the warmth of the sun, and a ghost seems to breathe across your flesh.

The first thing that registers as my body stirs and I open my eyes, is the starlight gathered under the window. It outlines the silver, thin curtains and spills down the cracked paint before pooling on the floor. In the dead of night, it looks like a secretive waterfall, hidden within this desolate cavern that is my room.

The flow of water is frozen in time—a silent cascade for my eyes only. Maybe a dream led it to me or me to it, but try as I might, I can’t remember what passed behind my eyelids before I awoke. Was it daylight? A grassy yard? A frightened bird?

What I have found now vibrates with energy, inviting me to peer behind the veil. I find it impossible to resist; I _have_ to look. What’s calling to me?

My legs slip from under my blanket as I push myself upright. The uneven floor is cool against the soles of my feet. It tends to complain when it’s walked on, but tonight it’s subdued. Perhaps it’s too impressed by the vision to speak. The only sound I hear is the soft whisk of my feet as I take unsteady steps toward the window. It’s a gentle _shush_ begging the world to remain still and reverent.  

The journey should have been short, but it takes longer than expected. My gait is not slower, but like a thick ephemeral syrup, the atmosphere resists me as I move. I hesitate, then my hand reaches towards the curtain; it stirs in a breeze, and I'm sure I closed the window to stave off the neighbour’s wandering cat, but I’m mistaken. The window is open. _Does my neighbour have a cat?_ _Do I hear the cat?_

The memory seems as flimsy as a dream fragment.

A breeze blows over the contours of my body, and a shudder runs through me. The chill doesn’t emanate from the room, but from somewhere else entirely. Before I can question why I am naked enough to feel the zephyr to my bones, the source of the intruding wind takes precedence over any other concerns.

The balcony door has been left open, and cold air is seeping inside. I don't open that door in the winter, and I'm certain the winter’s out there. Or is it fall? My memories warp and fade. Maybe I'm still dreaming.

My eyes find the bronze handle as another gust inches the gap wider. Fear stirs within me as spirals of energy coil and tighten in my core. Like a statue I wait, but no more disturbances make themselves known to my eye.

I resign myself to bed—this is nothing but the world between dream and reality; my mind is still fogged with wild and illogical notions. But as I turn to rejoin the safety and warmth of my soft mattress and thick comforter, that cloud cuts in front of the sun again. Something changes, something _is_ different. I should run. My heart races. I should grab a heavy tool—a blunt weapon–something is in here with me, but instead of arming myself, my feet take me to the door.

I grip the handle. It’s not as cold as it should be. It can’t be winter ... Wasn't I sprawled on my back, basking in the sun?

I want to hold my breath, but I can’t remember the last time I inhaled. Was a cloud drifting overhead? The door is too heavy like I'm drawing it open through cold, congealed porridge. My muscles should be straining, but they are numb.

The portal is open, and nothing is different—nothing _seems_ different. The leaves are tinged with silver from the full moon that hangs overhead, and everything is as calm and unmoving as the objects in my room. _A full moon?_ But that was yesterday…

I take another step over the threshold. The wind sighs through the boughs and branches, a gasp from the earth or the last drop of life leaving a tired old soul. It's at this moment when the air freezes again, just as I begin to ponder what time it might be, that it dawns on me. A penny drops.

There's a clock on my mantelpiece. It's been in the suite for generations, a regular, reliable tick. It is too still—no ticking of the second hand, no countdown of the moments, no measurement of time. There is no beat, no pulse, and as that curious thought processes, I realise my own internal timepiece has stopped. _My heart_ … It's not beating.

I want to scream; shriek to hear my voice. I want to run far away, or jump from the balcony to feel the ground hit me like a slap, wake me from this nightmare. Frigid fear creeps inside as it becomes clear what’s happening—I’m dying—but then a new coldness envelops me. A numbness accepts my fate and flows through me like a bleak and viscous fluid. It seeps into my lungs before I can utter a word. I can’t scream. I can’t talk. Can I cry?

My hand paws my chest, hunting for life as it refuses to accept my intuition. As my skin presses together, it blurs. There's a warmth of static energy building under my palm, but no steady thud that has been a constant companion since I was brought wailing into this world.

I'm compelled to turn towards my bed and search for the shape beneath the blankets—my lifeless anatomy left alone and cold. Instead my attention pours into the air in front of me which begins to distort and fracture like a kaleidoscope of grey and black, keeping my eyes from scouring the sheets. I can't focus. It’s all a blur again. My gaze follows the toiling mass, and my head spins as the world folds around me at impossible angles.

At its centre, where it doesn't twist, is the eye of a storm. A calmness washes over me. I'm enraptured by whatever this is. This is the place I’m supposed to be. Then a subtle mask materializes before my eyes—a shape of only two dimensions; an optical illusion. If I turn and examine it from a different angle, it might morph into something different. It's a mirror, reflecting a vague sense of something I can relate to. This thing lends a familiarity to the eyes that fall on it.

I keep gaping at this object, and my brain quiets to the same stillness of everything I’ve witnessed since I was roused. Or maybe I have yet to wake from my cold, pale bed—that notion is fool’s gold glinting deceitfully in the weak, silver light.

I need to know what happened here, find whatever remnants of humanity still ebb and flow beneath the fragile film of my vessel. My mouth opens and, the presence before me opens its mouth. But it’s not a mouth with lips and teeth. It’s a dark chasm that matches the ones in place of its eyes. Deep within those cavernous holes, I can see whole universes and the deep, eventide that’s beyond. It’s a comforting infinity of velvet blackness.

_DOES IT MATTER?_

The mask spoke without making a sound. The silence in this macrocosm continues to prevail, but the words vibrate within my skull and bones. I know who this is: it’s Death. Meeting Death makes sense, since my vitality seems like a lost memory now. I stand before this personified stage of nature—bared and honest—and decide not much matters anymore.

I begin to turn away from Death. I think I have the courage to do so, or maybe it’s because the remnants of my old humanity, being pushed inexorably out by that heavy acceptance, lends me the ability to care not for what I will find. I feel nothing but a terminal need to see what’s now behind me. And it’s just a lonely mound on the bed—nothing more. Then something catches my eye.

One of my feet has pushed out from underneath the blanket, five toes point heaven-bound. Even in the dark I see there is a discolouration on the sole of my foot. I was barefoot in the orchard, chasing the neighbour’s cat. It had a bird. I rushed to free the robin despite the hard, freezing earth. I saved it from claws and teeth and returned home, deciding a bath could wait until the morning. Apparently it couldn’t. Is my body still warm?

_DOES IT MATTER?_

The words are not unkind in tone, there is reassurance within them. Death can either read my thoughts or is well-versed enough to know the questions that will come at this point. There is a surprising absence of sentimentality as I turn away from my body and back to the spectre.

_FORWARD OR LINEAR AND OTIOUS. THERE IS NO GOING BACK._

Linear? I suppose that means to stay like this. Why would anyone choose that?

_REGRET._

_A_ s Death’s voice unfolds in the sanctuary of the most central part of my consciousness, it also plants a seed. I see those apologetic concerns floating in my subconscious: I left the washing up from breakfast, lunch, _and_ dinner for the morning. I put off that phone call warning the neighbour of my distaste for her malignant cat. I never went skydiving or spelunking or saw the Phantom of the Opera. Then a bubbling rises through my chest, and I remembered that moment, forty-three years ago, when I was blissful and warm, when I stopped myself from uttering the words _I love you_.

Regrets push through the topsoil of my mind and spiral out of control. I can remember everything I left undone, or unsaid, or untouched. A box overflows with spools of thread, tangled and unkempt, and there is something other than acceptance inside me. It’s need—a need to tie up the loose ends.

_IS IT ENOUGH?_

Are my needs enough to keep me here? I’ve met Death before, and I knew this question would come again. And so I think. It's an honest measurement of those threads. There's no desperation, despite the deliberation making my fingers itch: to sort, and unknot, and smooth. That need is almost an equal balance.

_Almost_ …

I look at my body for the first time. There is no noticeable change except a new ethereal glow to my skin. I am beautiful like this, and the honesty of my admission is overwhelming. When did I last reflect upon myself and find no fault? Have I ever? Memories slip through my fingers like grains of sand. But I don't tighten my fruitless grip, I simply watch in fascination as those tiny white spheres spiral into a grand abyss—no bottom or top, no beginning or end. Memories are for the living.

Are my needs enough to keep me here?

No, they are not enough.

If Death could smile, it would. But where do I go from here?

_DOES IT MATTER?_

It doesn’t. All that remains is the unknown—I see that now—and I marvel at the frivolous pieces of life we all feel compelled to control: the way we name our days and arrange them into arbitrary periods of time, the way we fret and schedule meals, the way we mindlessly concoct new versions of social etiquette every fifty years. It all seems absurd not wearing a hat indoors.

My hand pushes forward again, this time I'm absorbed by fascination. My fingers reach the vortex first, dipping into it like a puddle and spreading ripples into the world from just that tender contact. As soon as we touch, there is motion; the world begins to rush past me. Leaves brush against my face as soil passes beneath my feet. Cloth slides against my skin, air flows through my hair, and I can finally exhale. I'm laughing as the wind sighs delighted relief in my ears.

The world collapses, spinning and whirling like a fairground ride. The last of that tenuous connection to this particular spot thins and snaps. At that moment, there clicks a noise, the first I’ve heard since waking and the last I will ever hear again: the gentle count of the clock, fretting away the seconds as it ticks and tocks on the mantel far behind me.

 


End file.
